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West London Free School
Free schools generally receive higher funding per pupil than local authority schools, data shows. Photograph: Tim Ireland/PA
Free schools generally receive higher funding per pupil than local authority schools, data shows. Photograph: Tim Ireland/PA

The 60% extra funds enjoyed by England’s free school pupils

This article is more than 8 years old

In our diary this week: data shows average free schools funding is £7,761 – but £4,767 per local authority pupil. Plus: what one academy paid on consultants, and another school celebrates exam success

England’s free schools received 60% more funding per pupil than local authority primaries and secondaries in the latest financial year, new analysis by Education Guardian shows.

The average amount of state funding given to free schools in 2013-14 is £7,761, compared with a national figure for local authority schools of £4,767, according to Department for Education data released last month. DfE statistics on academy spending (free schools are a type of academy) includes data for 54 mainstream free schools, set up in the first two years of the scheme. A quarter are documented as receiving at least £10,000 per pupil in 2013-14, compared with national averages for conventional state schools of £5,817 among all secondaries and £4,402 among primaries.

Free schools towards the top of the funding rankings often have only small numbers of pupils. St Andrew the Apostle Greek Orthodox school, in Barnet, north London, received the most: £18,507 for each of its 73 pupils, making £1.4m in total.

Second was Pimlico primary, in Westminster – part of the Future academy chain, run by academies minister Lord Nash and his wife Caroline – with £17,615 for each of its 26 pupils, or £458,000 in total.

Across all academies with more than 100 pupils, the top-funded school was Ark All Saints academy, in Southwark, south London, on £19,420 per pupil from the state.

On its website the DfE describes these data tables as “experimental” and they are not all-encompassing: there is no information, for example, published about schools within two major academy chains: the Harris Federation and the David Ross trust.

The DfE was invited to respond, but had not done so at the time of Education Guardian going to press.

Education consultants swallow fifth of income

Also intriguing in the academy spending data was the Coventry-based Erudition Schools Trust’s spend on education consultants, cited as nearly 20% of its entire income.

Both DfE data and Erudition’s accounts show a £277,000 spend on educational consultants in 2013-14, out of a total income of £1.4m for its two schools. A large proportion of this was earmarked that year for the American for-profit company K12, which sells online curriculum resources and education services. The company, founded by a former Erudition trustee, Ronald Packard, is listed on the school’s website as its “partner”. An Erudition spokeswoman tells us this has involved K12 providing curriculum materials as well as some investment in the schools.

In a statement, Erudition told us £133,000 of this had been invoiced by K12’s UK arm for education consultancy for a failed bid to set up a free school. A further £18,000 was invoiced to Erudition by K12 UK for education and consultancy fees, but the money was never paid as the invoices were later cancelled.

Alan Windram, head of finance for Erudition, said K12 had been happy to write off the fees as part of its “investment into the UK [education] market”. We read this as suggesting the company might like to see its resources more widely sold.

Karen Mackay, Erudition’s managing director, says in the statement: “Neither [Erudition Schools Trust or K12] have profited as a trust or as a company from these schools and our primary purpose will always be to improve children’s welfare and success.”

Sedgehill celebrates success despite exodus

Bittersweet news arrives from one of south London’s largest comprehensives, where results at both GCSE and A-level have risen, despite an exodus of staff at the end of a tumultuous academic year.

Some 45 staff left Sedgehill school at the end of last term, a well-placed source tells us, along with two deputy heads and two assistant heads, following closely behind headteacher Ken Mackenzie, who left in April.

The school’s future was thrown into doubt last autumn when Lewisham council sacked governors and tried to force it into a partnership with Bethnal Green academy in east London, citing poor results. That plan was scrapped after Bethnal Green withdrew in the face of an 1,800-signature petition against it.

Mackenzie resigned three months after Lewisham sought to push ahead anyway with plans for management change by installing a new chief executive, Julia Scannell, above him.

Two weeks ago, the school celebrated improved A-level results as “very pleasing” (we understand the A*-B rate rose from 34.4% to 36%), while its headline GCSE scores, released last week, rose by 10 percentage points to a new record of 54%. Our source, a former staff member, says: “These [improving] figures show that nothing should have been done at our school.”

Scannell has not commented on staff departures at the school. She did, however, say: “We are really pleased that the school achieved its best ever GCSE results, from 2014’s very low base. The school is fully and appropriately staffed for September 2015 and we are looking forward to continuing a journey of swift and significant improvement.”

Asbestos campaigner finally calls it a day

And finally, a widely respected campaigner on the issue of asbestos in classrooms is retiring.

Michael Lees campaigned tirelessly to highlight the risks of asbestos in schools, after the death of his wife, Gina, a former nursery teacher, who died at the age of 51 of mesothelioma.

Lees, who ran the Asbestos in Schools website, brought together teaching unions to lobby parliament on the issue and was heavily involved in the successful push to get ministers to publish a review on asbestos in schools before the general election. He was awarded an MBE for his work last year.

A union source said: “Many in the anti-asbestos movement are extremely sad that he’s finally decided to call it a day.” We wish him well.

This article was amended on 25 August 2015. An earlier version said it was understood that at Sedgehill school the A*-C rate for A-levels rose from 34.4% to 36%. Those figures were for A*-B. The article was further amended on 27 August 2015 to correct a quote from Julia Scannell. An earlier version misquoted her as saying “The academy is fully and appropriately staffed…”.

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